Tales from the Opening Bell

Mike FloresThursday, October 07, 2010

his past weekend gave us the first appearance of Scars of Mirrodin in heavy-fisted Constructed competition. The fur flew. Mana was Leaked. New planeswalkers appeared, and Top Decks-featured preview cards once again kicked butt.

But most of all, Primeval Titans rumbled through the Red Zone, turning it green with all their combat-Cultivated lands.

Let's explore:

Red-Green Valakut Ramp

This format—at least one week in—seems to be ruled by Primeval Titans.

There are all different kinds of Primeval Titan decks. We have seen decks that fuel Destructive Force, various three-color decks (some employing additional Titans), and Turboland. There are even pure beatdown decks, just touching for Summoning Trap and flipping up Primeval Titans for free! And of course we have the two distinct tribes of Titan decks (probably the most popular pre-Scars of Mirrodin) featured in this Top 8.

Of the Titan sub-metagame, it seems that Red-Green Valakut Ramp is the most powerful Titan deck (I would humbly submit, as a former Green-White Summoning Trap player, that the beatdown style is by far the weakest player in intra-Titan conflicts, as it can only get ahead, not catch up).

TCGPlayer Champion Jack Vargas played essentially a classic Red-Green Valakut Ramp deck, enhanced by new planeswalker, Koth of the Hammer.

How does this deck work?

In the early game, the Red-Green Valakut Ramp deck uses its various acceleration cards to set up the big spells. Avenger of Zendikar is a legitimate finisher by itself—especially with all the ways to play multiple lands in a single turn—but the name comes from this deck's Valakut-centered butt-kicking capabilities.

Flynn went a slightly different direction; he played a deck with essentially the same competencies—tons of mana acceleration setting up big threats and ultimately a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle end game—but varied his offense with a three-way array of Titans.

Flynn supported his many high-end threats with even more lands than Vargas (twenty-eight lands, along with twelve pre-Oracle of Mul Daya accelerators). He added some spice to his sideboard with black for Memoricide via Bojuka Bog and good old basic Swamp (easy to find in this deck).

Eldrazi Ramp

This mono-green deck was largely popularized in the United States by Conrad Kolos at U.S. Nationals 2010. Conrad conceded that the mono-Green Eldrazi Ramp deck might have been a dog to the Red-Green Valakut Ramp (Valakut can take out the straight green deck's Primeval Titan), but the green deck has such a powerful and different route paved by its specialty lands.

Eye of Ugin is a powerhouse that lets the Eldrazi Ramp player find a variety of threats, the most powerful of which is Emrakul, the Aeons Torn! Eldrazi Temples help the deck play any of the expensive-but-effective colorless cards at a discount.

Tapal played largely a conventional Eldrazi Ramp deck. This deck is almost an Eldrazi-linear strategy, with basically all the tournament playable Eldrazi cards (save maybe Eldrazi Conscription) in the main deck.

Wurmcoil Engine is both resistant to White-Blue removal and absolute hell for the beatdown.

One of the things that impressed me about this deck is how much attention the duo spent on the mirror. Case in point: They played all four copies of Terastodon specifically for other Primeval Titan Ramp decks.

Elves is a deck designed to look at its hand, dump all the cards onto the battlefield, and use the massive amount of mana those cards produce to take massive action.

This can be somewhat vulnerability exposing (especially given the presence of not only historical sweepers like Day of Judgment, but awesome new cards like Ratchet Bomb). But Elves counterbalances that with the mighty Eldrazi Monument.

In a deck with mostly Elves, this three-drop is essentially a walking Overrun. Elves can easily cast a first turn Arbor Elf or Llanowar Elves, get the ball rolling, and then fire big muscles-style. Ezuri, Renegade Leader is also a fine shield against removal or even combat interaction.

Essentially Ford would take over the game with his one-for-ones, then put his stamp on it with one of his Titans. Destructive Force was not necessary, strictly, for the win ... but it certainly made games difficult for the other guy.

White-Blue Control might seem like a straight port from pre-Scars of Mirrodin Standard, but if you look at the specific choices that Pedro Quintero made, you will see a deck that is about as rich in the new set as possible.

I am not going to go through the basics of how to play a White-Blue Control deck as it is the oldest and most well known serious strategy, ever. Instead I'll talk about all the new cards that Pedro played, and how they fit in.

Ratchet Bomb: This card seems awesome in White-Blue Control. As hinted, I played a Green-White Summoning Trap deck with lots of cheap accelerators (Joraga Treespeaker, Birds of Paradise, and so on). While the deck was a slight dog to other Primeval Titan decks, if there was one deck that I consistently smashed, it was White-Blue Control ... but not Pedro's build! The mere presence of Ratchet Bomb forced me to re-think how to approach the match-up ... and was absolutely punishing when I was wrong.

Elspeth Tirel: Pedro never actually used the Nevinyrral's Disk ability on the weekend! He used it primarily for tokens production, would consider running a third.

I was also able to grab a few minutes with Pedro, to talk about his deck. Unfortunately Brian David-Marshall couldn't help out with this 'cast ... as he was battling for his own fabulous prizes in the Top 8 of Day 2. Great job Brian! Long story short, you have to settle for Yours Trult (but Pedro is great nevertheless):

The Top 16

Let's just touch on some of the new, different, and interesting decks that just missed:

Just a more tuned version of the "all-in on Argentum Armor" White Weenie strategy. In addition to Quest for the Holy Relic and a Magical Christmas Land of free (or simply cheap) creatures, this deck can use Stoneforge Mystic to find the expensive equipment, cast it for cheap with the Mystic's ability, then save about four mana with the help of Kor Outfitter.